CenterCut: Just Because It's Green Doesn't Make It Profitable

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Just Because It's Green Doesn't Make It Profitable

Black Clouds Over Wind Power, Denmark (photo: RLW)

Wind power stalls
A number of factors have combined to make wind farms less attractive.

Ayear ago the Oracle of Oil, T. Boone Pickens, reinvented himself as the Wizard of Wind, launching a $58-million ad campaign to boost alternative energy and vowing to spend $10 billion to build the world's largest wind farm in the Texas Panhandle. It was a startling move from a staunch conservative who had made a fortune in the Texas oil fields, raising hopes that both ends of the political spectrum were coming around to the same point of view about weaning the country from its reliance on oil.

And then, last week, the Pickens plan foundered. Pickens announced that he was scrapping the wind farm. It's too late to take back the $2 billion worth of wind turbines he has already ordered, so instead he has decided to place them in smaller projects around the country.

Balance of article: Los Angeles Times

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CenterCut - Alternative Energy & Sustainability

Centercut tracks the political implications of policy, tax subsidies, and direct grants on alternative energy and sustainability projects worldwide.

We review articles and scientific journals the world over to discern emerging and replacement technologies, political trends and the occational intellectual cul-de-sac.

In a world under severe stress all systems require new thinking. It is imperative that sustainability and alternative energy become mantras for creative destruction and cascading innovation. Small incremental advances will 'ripple' across our fragile orb in waves of change unimagined.

Blog Editor: Richard L. Wottrich

CenterCut = Center of Gravity

The greatest challenges in life are gifts that force us to search for a new center of gravity.

Einstein said, “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.” But the mysterious absent wisdom is noise, just as knowledge absent experience is irrelevance.

We are either a marvelous human race celebrating the ascendancy of humanity, science and technology, or we are the miscreants who have created a dysfunctional world under severe stress. Our blessing is that we still have a choice.

Richard L. Wottrich

Centercut Definitions

Alternative Energy - Energy Systems derived from sources that do not deplete irreplaceable natural resources or harm the environment.

Sustainability - The ability to maintain balance of a certain process or state in any system, especially related to the depletion of world energy and water resources at a rate that cannot be replaced.

Stakeholders - The end-users or clients, the people from whom requirements will be drawn, the people who will influence the design and, ultimately, the people who will reap the benefits of a completed project.